Fear is a Strange Soil
In aid of promoting greater science literacy and understanding, I give you: GMO the good stuff. We see a lot of media about genetically modified organisms, and most of it is bad news. I don't understand the fear of it, which is largely fuelled by poor understanding, media sensationalism, and a positively appalling lack of literacy when it comes to science. I do understand that people fear that which they do not know.
“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.” --Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)
The problem is that while we here in the US can afford to self-righteously eschew the corn and potatoes that aren't 'naturally' grown, the rest of the world wants, needs, and benefits from what GMO can do for you. So the media beating the drum to ban it leads directly to the deaths of poor people in other places, which are impacted by our NIMBY attitudes here.
Significant benefits from GM crops have come in the domain of socio-economics. Recent examples include:
Female small landholders spent an average of three fewer weeks hand-weeding their fields. The time saving was spent hauling more water to their personal vegetable gardens and with their children. (Gouse, 2013)
Farmer suicides in India leveled-off or decreased in most cotton-producing regions following the commercialization of Bt cotton. (Gruère and Sengupta, 2011)
Significant spillover benefits occurred in China, where insecticide applications in non-Bt cotton fields dropped from in excess of 40kg/ha to less than 10kg/ha. (Huang et al., 2010)
The adoption of Bt cotton in India results in up to 9 million fewer cases of pesticide poisoning per year. (Kouser and Qaim, 2011)
GM corn contains 30% fewer cancer related mycotoxins, than conventional or organic corn. (Pellegrino et al., 2018)
The quantification of human health benefits helps to explain the popularity of GM crops with developing countries farmers, particularly cotton farmers. Especially given that farmers have extensive communication networks and share their GM crop production experiences with neighboring farmers.
Me, I'm a potato, I guess. All eyes, no ears. Or maybe I'm some weird hybrid that grows potatoes underground, and corn above, and what has a mouth on a plant? I'll just keep putting this out here, in hopes that someone will see it, and be willing to listen and consider that perhaps, just maybe, GMO isn't as evil as the media portrays it. The benefits are staggering to our planet, not only to the human species, but if you believe agriculture should have a smaller footprint globally, then you must stop trying to embrace the dissonance of 'less GMO' and 'less agriculture' unless you are willing to admit you want people to die in job lots.